>> bomb shells about washington's most powerful players. why would a man with a representation for being discrete with go this public? and bill richardson joins me.

example zan examining anxiety disorders, and i'm antonio moro. welcome to "consider this." >> we begin with a surprising memoir written by former defense secretary and c.i.a. director robber gates. the ultimate public servant and statesman, a washington insider who served under presidents from both parties. his memoir, which isn't even out yet is serving up critique of the obama white house. he chose contempt for congress and the vice president and said joe biden has been wrong on every foreign policy issue over

the last four decades . for more, we speak with senior fellow for american progress, we're also joined bay contributor to al jazeera english, who served as secretary of defense for middle east policy and worked closely with secretary gates at the pentagon. and joining us is editor of "defense one." kevin has covered and traveled with defense secretary gates and they all join us from washington, d.c. it's a pleasure to have you all with us. one excerpt from the book focuses on a meeting where gates questions obama's leadership and questions the military in particular. he writes:

the reference to the commander is the u.s. commander of american forces in afghanistan david petraeus. general, let's start with you. should a former official criticize a sitting president? critics have said he really shouldn't, and certainly those comments about karzai will damage further a relationship that is already problematic? >> well, first of all, i don't think that we should be very surprised that this book came out three years after stepping down as director of the c.i.a. robert gates wrote his book from behind the shadows, and was very, very forthright in that book, as well. he was very positive in some regards and critical in other records. regards. i don't see anything stunning, but he is a private citizen now, and i think he is writing for

history now as he was writing in 1996 as his experience as director of the c.i.a. >> larry, shouldn't he have the right to do that? you have already been critical of gates, and even former defense secretary lyon panetta because they criticized syria and russia last year. you said their behavior was unprofessional and unseemly. you really think he should not be writing about his experiences while the president is in obvious?--in office? >> well, certainly he should not be saying some of the things. for example, joe biden has been wrong about all foreign policies the last 40 years. that's not true. he was right about the balkans and the first gulf war and what would happen in iraq. it would fall apart. saying these things, and secretary clinton said she really didn't mean it. that's not the type of stuff, that's beneath him, beneath the

office, and most of his predecessors. melvin laird, he waited for 30 years after he left to write an about, you know, what went on. so iris van who resigned when president carter was going to try to rescue the hostages in iran never went out and criticized him. more than that, if he didn't like it, why did he stay? why didn't he speak up? what about his obligation to the men and women that he talks to movingly in the book if that's how he felt. i give you one example where he's dead wrong. obama when he announced that he was going to add roughly the 70,000 troops with the two that he did, he went to west point and said i'm going to be out in two years, and the military commanders, he asked him, do you support that? they all said yes. then he finds out general petraeus is telling the press,

no he didn't, no. they should have spoken up then. again, i'm not sure what this accomplishes in terms of what he's trying to do other than protect his own reputation. >> we should say that the national security council has responded to excerpts in the book, specific by about vice president biden. they said: >> kevin, how do you see this? who is right here? >> who is right about what? >> the vice president specifically. >> well, you know, i think of all the things that we've seen so far we haven't seen much, the criticism of the vice president is the one thing that sounds the least

gates-ian of all. it sounds like a g.o.p. hit on the vice president. clearly nobody is wrong all of the time. that said, going back to the original point of the general brigadier, no, we should not be surprised secretary gates. we knew he was going to write this book. he has another book in the works. we knew that before he retired that that was in the plan. this seems in line with his previous memoir. he's telling it like it is from his perch. secretary gates is an executive branch denizen. he never was a politician, and this was the closest that he would get to be one. he talked about the frustration of not only fighting wars but fighting washington, fighting congress, but he also said he understands that. having to deal with ro

rom emmanuel and axing rod. >> let's talk about the politics. gates talks about how he found himself with odds with what he called obama's controlling inner circle. there has not been anything like it since kissinger and nixon. he said: >> general, let's start with you on this one. i want to hear what larry has to say about this. is this unusual as to how much politics were determining our national security decisions? >> well with, i don't think its surprising at all that in the first two years of the administration, especially for a president that ran on getting out of one war and trying to reform another war, that there

is going to be that level of micromanagement that comes from the west winning. that's something that i suspect secretarsecretary of gates unded would happen. it's not something that we want to see in our public servants, that level of macro-management done by none elective, not even appointed application politicians, but that's just a fact of life. i don't think that secretary gates has necessarily overly harsh. i think he was just acknowledging, as he has in both of his books from what i've read in his passbook, and what we're starting to read in this book, he's putting it down in history so if nothing else america can take his experiences as director of c.i.a. and sick of defense and learn from that and try to improve from that. >> larry, what do you think? is there an unusual amount of politics involved in important national security divisions? >> no, gates should go back and

see what the first defense secretary said. he said, you can no more separate politics from government than you can sex from creation. this idea that he has been around--i watched him play games when i was in the reagan administration in terms of saying, well, reagan shouldn't negotiate with gorbachev. soviets will never leave afghanistan. this idea that some how he was naive, that's nonsense. if you take a look, he was a deputy on the nasa national security council for bush. >> you're saying political people were making a lot of decisions and influencing the decisions, and that's different than having national security people make decisions. >> well again, when i worked for reagan, mike was very close.

gabriel was the one who told him to call bege n. you got to sell to the american people and sell it to congress, and that's a constraint on what you want to do and need to do. the tea party want cut the defense budget so i think the political people need to take that into account when they're formulating a defense budget. >> kevin gates was a hold over from the george w. bush administration. will these revelations kee make someone think twice about keeping someone on from a previous party? >> no, i don't think so.

everyone knew he was going to put this book out while he still had a chance to perhaps influence the second term and not wait three years until obama leaves, or 30 or 50 whatever. i think something is going on right now where politics in washington does not understand or much less care about national security, vice versa, i think it's concerning. we were trying to cover this a little more in defense one. this goes to what the sense he's trying to say. the lyon panetta had the same frustrations and i think chuck layingel i hagel is experiencing that as well. the last two and three years we heard every national security leader in washington scream their heads off bloody murder not to have the sequestration, but it made no difference whatsoever because these political leaders in this town are not vested in national security like they were in the 80's, and

70's. so gates leaves office, he comes back to take control of these wars and says outrights he hates the job. he hates having to convince the white house why these things are important that we have to do or want to do for national security. but this is a new era. it's not just convincing his national security colleagues, as he points out. it's convincing ram emmanuel, david axelrod, he's acknowledging that this is a fact of life. he didn't like it. i wonder how much he grappled with understanding how to get through it or whether this was a man where the politics surpassed his time. i think that's the case. both gates and panetta left office with scathing, scathing peaches about the state of washington, state of politics, and congress. >> maybe aside from his attack on congress is that he even though he says he's a big fan of

former secretary of state hillary clinton and points out flattering things about her, there was one moment that he was clearly upset by, and she was with president obama, and he says, hillary told the president that her opposition to the 2007 surge in iraq had been political because she was facing him in the iowa primary. the president conceded vaguely that opposition to the iraq surge had been political. to hear the two of them making these admissions and in front of me was as surprising as it was dismaying. we reacted very strongly to that when we saw that here in our newsroom, general. is that one of the most concerning revelations in this book? >> well again, i think in total most of us have seen about two pages of what's probably 600 page book. but again, i think its important to go back to his '96 book and the last part of the book entitled "reflections."

he talks about the problems he had with the inter agency, with the white house aides, he talked about the problems that he had with congress. i think what seems to be the most surprising thing that secretary gates is finding out, which all of us now understand, is how much more intense those problems have become betwee between 1996 and 2012. the polarization inside of congress. the polarization inside the white house. the bureaucracy inside the pentagon. all of these are still the same problems that he mentioned 18 years ago in his last book, but they just seem to have intensified significantly to the point of his frustration, which is one of the historical lessons i think he's trying to bring out for all of us. hhe is a historian. he's not writing this book hysterically. he's not writing this book to settle scores but i do believe

he's writing history, not to go after political enemies or sharpen the axes. >> certainly these excerpts that have been released are powerful and intriguing. to my guests, thank you all for joining us.

assault. afghan president karzai is long accused the un

>> they have threatened our lives, our families' lives, i

don't think anyone should be subjected to these e-mails and threats. >> the club has alerted the fbi. samuel said this is probably just a distraction. >> the message is the life of the endangered species is on the line. >> so what is the future? president of the humane seat of the united states join us tonight. i assume its no stretch to assume that your organization would be opposed to this. tell us why? >> well, joie there are many rare species in the world, and the black rhino is one of the rarest. because of poaching and habitat loss we should do everything we possibly can to protect them. the idea of linking a trophy hunting exercise to conservation may make sense to folks who are involved in trophy hunting, but real reporting that brings you

the world. >> this is a pretty dangerous trip. >> security in beirut is tight. >> more reporters. >> they don't have the resources to take the fight to al shabaab. >> more bureaus, more stories. >> this is where the typhoon came ashore. giving you a real global perspective like no other can. >> al jazeera, nairobi. >> on the turkey-syria border. >> venezuela. >> beijing. >> kabul. >> hong kong. >> ukraine. >> the artic. real reporting from around the world. this is what we do. al jazeera america. >> imagine having all your every day activities crippled by fears and activities. more than 40 million adults suffer from anxiety disorders. that's one in four. and severe anxiety can effect everything you do.

scott has fought anxiety all of his life and in his books talks about battling many of his phobias. the subject of this cover story adopted from his book" age of anxiety." scott, great to have you with us. you went to harvard. you're the editor of a major magazine, a very successful guy. not the kind of person people would think struggles with anxiety. >> that's often the case. people who struggle most acutely with anxiety there is a gap between the external presented persona and what the turmoil that is going on within. so you know, when a lot of my colleagues read early copies of the book i had a parade of people coming to my office saying i had no idea, and can i give a hug, which was very nice but little bit awkward. >> that turmoil within, you describe all sorts of extreme situations in your life where

anxiety has completely paralyzed you from your social life to work. >> yes, i mean, and that's common for people who suffer from the various anxiety disorders. and it can be quite debilitating when it's at its most severe. it can contain when to travel, socialize, public speaking, take risks of any kind. but there is having the right kind of anxiety, it can be a motivating force and can actually--that little pump of adrenaline can future you to perform more effectively than if you haven't anxious at all. >> you read about how basketball grate bill russell would throw up before most of his games, and when he didn't do that, he didn't perform as well. so anxiety can contribute to success? >> this was a fascinating case.

bill russell, multiple world championships with the boston celtics won a gold medal, college, some blogger said he vomited before 1800 of his basketball games. there was a period of time where he stopped, and until he started again he wasn't playing to his optimum level. one of my acute phobias is the pathological fear of vomiting this was fascinating to me. this was a guy who was not debilitated by his anxiety. in fact, it was part and parcel of his high-level performance. he was able to--his body--he had the physiological experience of anxiety, but he didn't allow it to consume him in the way that i would. if i could embrace bill russell, i would do better. >> it seems that you definitely have. one reviewer of your book said that your agony with anxiety has

led to our reading pleasure. do you think it has helped you or hurt you more? >> that's a very good question. i guess i would say the jury is out. in some ways it definitely has helped me. this is something that i wrestled with in trying to decide to write this book and how to present it. i had kept my anxiety hidden from my friends, colleagues, most people who didn't know me closely didn't know about it at all. by admitting it i'm coming out at anxious and having in effect having a mental illness, which there is still a stigma attached to it, and i worry that it will be seen as a vulnerability and a weakness. my therapist said get it out there, it will be coming out and it will be liberating. it is to a case. but the irony i was prompted to write this book.

ten years ago when my book came out, i was anxious about the book tour, and i wrote another book ten years later and there is another book tour. >> you're talking to me knowing that thousands of people are watching this. how do you control the anxiety with situations like that? >> partly with medication. i use medication that calms, the glutamate system in your brain, the accelerator in your brain. it brings things down to a level where i can not have my thoughts racing and be focusing on my anxiety. it helps that i'm sitting in an empty room staring at a camera so i can pretend there is no one watching me although thousands may be doing so. >> you have all sorts of phobias. you've tried everything to control them. drugs, alcohol, in fact, your pre-public speaking routine is pretty extreme. you know, therapy, but you also

write in the end nothing has fully helped the underlying anxiety. what has helped the most? >> drugs at certain times have definitely been effective. both at reducing the acute episodes of anxiety and reducing general level of anxiety . pitch complicated views about medication. there are some whoa say the pharmaceutical companies are evil and trying to maximize their profit. i don't believe that, they do maximize their product but there are medications that help. there is cognitive behavioral therapy . exposure therapy where you're confronted again and again by the things that provoke anxiety until they provoke less anxiety.

and then writing a book, anxiety is part of the personality, and it's woven into who they are, and my wife at one point said i hate your anxiety, and i hate that it makes you so miserable, but what if your anxiety were to be cured and you became a complete jerk because it may be that there are aspects of your anxiety that makes you socially tuned to how people of thinking of you. coming to terms with it has certainly been adaptive. >> it's woven into you. it really is sort of an extreme way to your whole family. you write about how your great grandfather, your grandfather, your mother, your sister, now your kids are all plagued by some type of anxiety. how much of a genetic component is there with the anxiety disorders? >> it's impossible to separate completely the role of genetics, environment, culture, luck and circumstances. my own view after living with

this for a long time, but most importantly doing research in it, there is a strong genetic component to one's temperamental when presented with stressful situations. clearly my family line on both sides of the family, particularly on my maternal side has a strong genetic genome type of anxiety with my whole family are stipled with it. that said, you know, genes are not determinative. there are fascinating studies that a prime t primetologist who is studying monkeys, if you put anxious monkeys and put them with non-anxious parents, they grow up to be less anxious and often grow up to be leaders of

the troops. the precursor to anxiety with the right type of nurture can be productive. >> again, the book is my age of anxiety. fear, hope, dread, the search of peace of mind. thank you for joining us to talk al jazeera america gives you the total news experience anytime, anywhere. more on every screen. digital, mobile, social. visit aljazeera.com. follow @ajam on twitter. and like aljazeera america on facebook for more stories, more access, more conversations. so you don't just stay on top of the news, go deeper and get more perspectives on every issue. al jazeera america.

>> for on the field news, we turn to the nfl. next week's conference championship matchups are set, new england will travel to denver, that means tom brady and the patriots will meet peyton manning for the third time. the 49ers travel to seattle to face their bitter rival for the third time this season. that's your look at sports this hour. >> getting a fresh start. >> from living the life that i live, i thought by now, i should be dead. >> a unique business that's giving troubled women a second chance at al jazeera america. we understand that every news story begins and ends with people.

>> the efforts are focused on rescuing stranded residents. >> we pursue that story beyond the headline, pass the spokesperson, to the streets. >> thousands of riot police deployed across the capital. >> we put all of our global resources behind every story. >> it is a scene of utter devastation. >> and follow it no matter where it leads - all the way to you. al jazeera america, take a new look at news. >> quwhy is the price of marijua sky high in colorado now that it's legal for recreational use? the ounce normally goes for $200 an ounce, but recreational pot is costing at least twice that, why?

let's go the editor of "cannabis do "cannabis.co. why this big jump in the price for recreational marijuana as soon as it became legal. >> as soon as it became legal you ultimately had lines outside of the door and they would stretch around the block and in some cases across the street. so i think they ultimately saw ththat the need was interest, ad they raised prices, supply and demand, right? >> the demand was so great, and the stories are that these places ran out of the marijuana that they had available, and had to close down. >> you know, we haven't heard those reports. i don't have anything on the record as any of these shops running out of product, but even if they do run out of recreational product, they still have medical product for their patients. >> but by raising these prices, prices that are higher than the ones people can get on the

street, is that going to defeat the whole purpose of this? >> well, you know, part of the problem i --purpose is the experiment, to see if this will effect the war on drug, the black market. i've heard from readers that people saying we're going to stick with our dealer. it's what we know, the price is right, and in some situations the dealer is an old family friend who has been dealing with a single family for 30 or 40 years. >> so some how the dealer, there is loyalty to the dealer, difficult to understand that concept a little bit basically, especially since you now have guaranteed quality and it's legal so you don't run risk of criminality. but if demand has slowed down, if we're not seeing those big lines around the block, why have prices not come down? >> we still have the short lines, but we also have a limited number of pot shops that are open right now. so because it's still a

relatively small number, the city and county of denver did let us know this year that four more pot shops were just licensed, so because it's a small number they have the numbers in their favor. until more pot shops open that's when we really expect the price of recreational marijuana to go down. >> given that this is going to clearly in the short run grow very quickly, what is the general reaction? what is the general feeling of colorado to seeing the marijuana business becoming big business very quickly? >> the general feel something that it's bound to happen. right now as you watch the roll out, everything has happened pretty smoothly. many application politicians, including the governor, the mayor and cropping peoplcongresspeople and said th, colorado, thank you tourists for behaving responsebly. now it's just a matter of time before we see big business come into this market, and maybe give

a lot of these mom and pop business as run for their money. >> and what about the numbers? some people said--some reports said that a millions dollars in recreational pot had been sold in the first week--the first day. also some reports of $5 million in the first week. these are pretty substantial numbers. is it much more than expected? >> i'm not sure on the source. i heard them but i question the source. regardless, there is a lot of money to be made, and a lot of shops, they really had to hustle and jump through some hoops and really appease the state and local regulations to be able to sell on january 1st, and certainly those shops are seeing those with regards for being being--those reward for being the first to go get ready to

sell to the masses. >> these numbers could be more than they expected, and they're expecting tens of millions of dollars of worth of tax revenue. do you think that inspire more stateing to the route that colorado has gone? >> i don't know see how they can't. it's an attractive part of the proposition. >> even though marijuana is legal now in colorado, there's been this whole issue about whether people can still get fired if they fail a drug test that their business employs. is that opening up a whole new legal issue for business there is? >> it's a very complicated issue. here you have a drug that is illegal federally but legal in the state. employers have all the torts fire as they will. they can still do drug tests. if you test positively they can

fire you, and there has been court precedent in the last couple of years. a gentleman did get fired. he was working for a cable provider, and he was fired and even though it was medical he took them to court, and he ended up losing that case. the employer won. so we've been very careful to let our readers know that certainly this is an offense that can still get you fired. >> we have a viewer question. let's go to jana for that. >> on facebook, how can you tell if the person has purchased legal marijuana or illegal marijuana. if cop finds marijuana on a person walking down the street, how does he know if it was purchased illegally? >> that's a good question. the cop won't be able to tell if it was purchased villa a shop or from a dealer. ultimately it doesn't matter. colorado law protects citizens to hold up to an ounce. if you have a red card, a medical marijuana license, you

can hold up to two ounces. >> what do you think this is going to mean for the black market? do you think we're going to see drug dealers especially as marijuana recreation marijuana prices start coming down, will they focus on other drugs, or do you think there will still be a market here. >> the black market isn't going anywhere, but from the interaction we've had villa social media, the people who are tied to the black market are still there, but i just don't think that it will thrive as it has in the past simply because you can now walk into a store. you can buy it. it's taxed. it's socially accepted for the most part. >> it's a very interesting experiment that is going on in colorado. thank you for joining us again to keep us posted on what's happening. appreciate your time. >> thank you.

>> we may not have hover boards yet but plenty other futuristic technology has arrived at the consumer electronic show in las vegas. the nation's longes largest show of its kind. tim it's always great to have you on the show. i know there is a delay because of the satellite connection but i want to start with cars. they were a big car at this year's show. mostly because of the

advancement we are seeing with self driving cars. what have you seen? >> we're seeing interesting self driving demonstration. audi has a car that can park itself, which is not too new. you can but park from your phone, and you can get out of your car anding it back into a parking spot. we can went up to a racetrack, in a bmw, it went racing all by itself. it was exciting to say the least. >> amazing to see all these things. also there is this vehicle-to-vehicle conversation, and an detroit alliance with google? >> vehicle-to-vehicle communication is going to be in the future, warning you if there is something going on ahead. mercedes does this already ahead.

if you pull over and pop your hood it, etc. other mercedes know that there is problem ahead. they're getting together to come up with ways to get android inside the car. the basic idea is make it easier for your smart phone to connect to your car and in theory run android apps in your car. we'll see cars with this by the end of this year. >> incredible, and t.v.'s, of course, the shows' brett and butter, we're talking about these crazy h t.v.'s with 4 k television. is the picture really going to get that much clearer? >> yes, so 4 can television is four times the resolution of a television. we've been seeing these for a while, but they're getting more beautiful than before. the big trend this year is bendable and foldable displays which is crazy.

if you sit in a sweet spot, the tv bends around you and gives a very clear picture. the these are very expensive. they're $30,000 for these sets. but a tv that can bend and flex is a crazy thing. something that you'll only see here for now. >> how does the curved screen help? >> the idea is basically for each pixel it's shooting light straight out effectively. if you're sitting in front of the tv you want that tv bent around and shooting the light out. as the tvs get bigger and bigger, the sides of the tv are further away, so if it bends around it gives a better picture. that's only in theory. if you have several people watching tv, there is only one person who will have the sweet spot. you can hit a button and it will bend from the wall, and then hit the button again and it

streets back out against the wall. >> we've heard the future of gadgets being wearable technology. smart watches have advanced? >> one of the biggest announcements of the show is the new pedal, i'm wearing the black version. the first version of the pebble. it was a huge kick starter success raised over $10 million. this was an all metal building. the plastic version looks cheap looking, this one is a little nicer. the people who are watching apps for the pebble smart watch, and espn has signed on and mercedes measures mercedes-benz, and this will be 250 later this year. >> already, there have been some

of these bio metric tracking devices that you can wear that tell if you you slept well. there are more advances on that front, too? >> there are dozens and dozens of them here. there are not that many that are doing anything drastic as before. we're seeing changes in form factor. nothing really revolutionary, but it's a huge growing market. more and more people are buying these items. they're getting smarter about attacking your sleep and activity. before they could only act as pedometers, but now they can detect if you go to the gym or ride your bike. but i think we have a ways to go before they're truly smart he sensors. they're not quite smart and accurate enough for me . >> and video games are taking a leap forward in virtual reality? >> it was a big thing back in the 90's, and then quickly fell out of fashion, unfortunately. there is a company called

oculus that was successful on kick starter. they have an oculus resist here that uses the head set itself. it's a set of goggles that you wear over your head to provide virtual reality as if you're inside the video game. if you looked right or left it would change perspective. but now you can lean left or right and you can imagine being in a video game and you're hunting someone down, you can lean around the corner and look at them, find them and shoot them if you want to. pretty cool stuff. it has a higher resolution, and we'll see it sometime this year. they didn't say how much it would cost. >> they look like alien zombies, but it does sound like fun. we almost all have smart phones, but you were looking at smart toothbrushes? >> it's definitely having an idea that crazy.

a smart toothbrush tracks how long you brush your teeth, and detect hole well you have brushed your teeth so it can tell the kinds of motions you can press. it seems silly, but for a parent with their kids, they can tell if they brushed their teeth, not only did they just hold the brush under the faucet, but did they brush their feet, and in theory give them rewards based on how well they've been brushing their tease with the online component of following stats. >> it must be an awfully tempting place. you must want to have all these gadgets and take them home, i know it will take some time before they're all available to us. enjoy yourself out there in vegas. the show may be over, but the conversation continues on our website.

>> welcome to the news hour. these are our top stories. a cease-fire and prisoner exchange, and russia push for a peace summit. but will iran thereby? >> we would welcome iran's participation if iran is coming to participant for the purpose of the conference. >> the final farewell, ariel sharon